


love letters on my skin

by nip-the-cat (venom_for_free), pllsetskyonice (hma1313)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Artist Yuri Plisetsky, DJ Otabek Altin, M/M, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venom_for_free/pseuds/nip-the-cat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hma1313/pseuds/pllsetskyonice
Summary: “What if it’s him?” Mila looks far too excited for her own good, practically jumping up and down in her seat. “What if he’s your soulmate?”“Don’t be ridiculous,” Yuri says. Otabek Altin can’t be his soulmate. That’s absurd. His soulmate can’t be some high flying musician writing all the biggest hits. His soulmate is probably no more than a fan, writing down the lyrics on their arm because they’re bored. Otabek Altin can't be his soulmate. Right?
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 32
Kudos: 293
Collections: Superfan





	love letters on my skin

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of the Superfan project! It's been amazing to collaborate with so many talented people, and I can't thank venom enough for organising the whole thing. 
> 
> This can be read as a standalone, but I highly recommend checking out the original work and the other works in the collection. 
> 
> The two songs mentioned in this fic are [Gold by Dash Berlin and DBSTF](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFHl2ZGWDLs) and [Never Let You Go by Dash Berlin and John Dahlbäck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZCC8q_ZOuQ). 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

From the moment Yuri is born, he has the scribbles of his soulmate on him.

They’re scribbles in red ink that freak out one of the junior nurses for a moment before the doctor explains that it’s fine, babies come out with the marks of their soulmate on them all the time. They’re shapes, wonky stars and mismatched triangles, the hand of someone’s who’s probably only a couple of years older than Yuri, only a toddler themselves.

Yuri is brought up by his Grandpa mostly. It’s Nikolai that explains to Yuri about the marks are that appear on his body, why they fade in a day or two. He explains about the soulmate system, how what you write on your skin will appear on your soulmate, and the marks only last until whoever drew them washes them off. People find each other through their marks, arrange to meet places at certain times.

“Who’s my soulmate?” Yuri asks when Nikolai has finished his explanation.

“I don’t know, Yurachka,” Nikolai says softly. “But you’ll find out one day, I promise you that.”

“Oh.” Yuri looks around the living room, at his collection of soft toy cats and cat-themed toys, to the real live tabby cat who’s stretched out on the rug basking in the light of the sun coming through the window. “Will they like cats too?”

“I’d expect so, yes.”

Yuri grins at that. “Good,” he says. “I wouldn’t like them if they didn’t like cats.”

* * *

Yuri grows up, and the messages and drawings from his soulmate continue. He writes back, sometimes, little doodles when he’s bored in class. As he grows up, he discovers that he’s got quite a talent for art, and often draws on his skin when he’s out of paper and doesn’t have any nearby. His soulmate on the other hand tends to write a lot. Sometimes it’s Russian, occasionally it’s English, but most of the time it’s a language that looks a lot like Russian but isn’t. It takes Yuri far too long to work out that it’s Kazakh, but even now that he knows his soulmate is probably Kazakh it doesn’t narrow it down a lot. They’re both big countries, after all. They’re probably not even in the same time zone.

By the time Yuri hits university, he’s no closer to finding out who his soulmate is. Instead, he has to suffer through his second cousin Victor waxing poetic about his soulmate, a Japanese guy who has the audacity to also be called Yuuri. They’re sickening together, in the way that soulmates who have just met properly for the first time are, and Yuri is getting rather tired of it.

“Oh, cheer up, Yura,” Mila, one of his coursemates, says. “You’ll meet your soulmate, I know you will.”

His soulmate seems to write a lot more in English now. Sometimes, the words and phrases seem almost familiar in a way that Yuri can’t quite place. He’ll see them on his skin, and then a few weeks or months later he’ll hear something that sounds similar on the radio or playing at a club.

At first, he thinks it’s just a coincidence. His soulmate is probably just really into music or something, likes going to concerts or on nights out. It’s not until Mila points out that all of the lyrics that appear on Yuri’s arm are by the same artist that he starts to wonder if there’s a bit more to it.

“They’re all Otabek Altin lyrics,” she says one Thursday when they’re in the art studio together, working on upcoming assignments.

Yuri’s only half-listening. He’s got three paintings to finish by the end of the week and he’s barely got the outlines done for all of them. He’s currently far more preoccupied with where his tube of ivory black gouache has gone. “Who?” he asks.

Mila rolls her eyes. “Otabek Altin? Really upcoming in the music industry? The biggest thing to come out of Kazakhstan in the past, I don’t know, ever? No?”

“No.” The name is vaguely familiar, but only in the way of any celebrity he’s heard of a couple of times here and there. Yuri finds the tube of paint tucked into the bottom corner of his bag. “Ah, there it is. Why are you pointing this out, anyway?”

“What if it’s him?” Mila looks far too excited for her own good, practically jumping up and down in her seat. “What if he’s your soulmate?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Yuri says. Otabek Altin can’t be his soulmate. That’s absurd. His soulmate can’t be some high flying musician writing all the biggest hits. His soulmate is probably no more than a fan, writing down the lyrics on their arm because they’re bored.

“But what if he is?” Mila passes her phone across to Yuri. It’s open on Otabek’s Instagram page, where a cool 1.4 million people are following him as he jets across the world, playing in Ibiza, at Tomorrowland and Ultra music festival. Yuri swallows nervously. He thought it was a big deal when his art account hit a thousand followers. It had him in a good mood for weeks. This guy is a whole other level.

The last few photos are all promotional material from his upcoming album, all dark shots taken down dimly lit alleys with neon signs. This Otabek guy is also hot, Yuri realises. Dark eyes and an expression that’s quite moody and interesting at the same time. He’s wearing a leather jacket that probably cost more than Yuri’s rent. Yuri’s not quite sure what to make of him. His Instagram all seems very surface level, nothing that shows who Otabek really is. There are a few pictures of him on motorbikes, and it’s the only thing on his feed that shows he has any kind of life outside of his music.

“I mean he’s hot,” Yuri says. “But he can’t be my soulmate.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, his soulmate’s got to be some leggy model type that looks like she’s just walked out of a perfume ad and has her entire Instagram feed filled with pictures on vacations we could never fucking dream of affording. It can’t be me.”

“But what if it is?”

Yuri shrugs. “Then I guess life will be very different. But I still don’t think it’s me.”

* * *

Now that Mila has planted the Otabek Altin idea in his head, though, Yuri can’t stop thinking about it. He finds himself three years deep in Otabek’s Instagram feed in the early hours of the morning a few days later, photos taken in tiny clubs in Almaty where Otabek started out playing. His arms are covered in most of them, but now and again there’s a shot of him with them uncovered and it has Yuri squinting as he zooms in, to see if he recognises anything, but no luck. On the photos that do have his arms uncovered, there’s nothing to see. Maybe a black blur barely visible behind the decks that could be anything. It doesn’t give him anything else to go on.

It’s nearly three am when he put _otabek altin soulmate_ into Google. He hates himself immediately, because what kind of person is he, googling about a celebrity’s soulmate status? Is this what he’s become?

Apparently so. Even Google doesn’t help him, there’s nothing about his soulmate being found, and in an old article archived from a music magazine the only mention of anything soulmate related is _I haven’t found my soulmate yet, but am still looking._ And the article is from eighteen months ago, so it’s entirely possible that Otabek could’ve found his soulmate since the article was written.

Yuri locks his phone and lies back on the bed with a sigh. This is ridiculous, right? His soulmate can’t be a celebrity. That stuff doesn’t happen in real life. He’ll just resign himself to adding some of Otabek’s songs to a playlist, follow him on Instagram and carry on as though nothing has happened. Because nothing has.

And if Mila notices the sudden addition of EDM music to Yuri’s usual playlist that’s otherwise consisted mostly of rock, she’s good enough not to comment.

* * *

Otabek wakes up to doodles on his arms again.

He smiles when he notices them. He’s got no idea who his soulmate is, but whoever they are, they sure do like to draw a lot. When he was younger, he thought it was just a kid being bored in class, but it’s continued to now, when Otabek is in his early twenties and his soulmate, Otabek thinks, is about nineteen or so. Maybe they’re an art student, a wannabe tattoo artist, or just a bored office worker sitting at a desk somewhere, doing anything that will take their mind off emails. Otabek doesn’t care either way, though. He quite likes how his arms turn into a different gallery exhibition every few days.

Today, it’s mountains. Huge, snow-topped affairs that could be anywhere in the world, really, but look a bit like the mountain ranges in Kazakhstan if he looks at them at the right angle. But that’s probably just a coincidence.

Otabek is in London, the last of his tour dates in the UK before he moves onto mainland Europe. The crowds are different wherever he goes, and it’s amazing to see so many people from so many walks of life all coming together for music. And it’s him that brings them all together, his music.

It’s mad to think that his dream has become a reality.

The day passes quickly, there’s an interview with BBC Radio 1 in the morning, a lunch with another UK DJ discussing the possibility of a collab, and before he knows where he is Otabek is at the venue for soundcheck. He rolls up his sleeves and plays a few excerpts from some songs, and they always sound so odd in the empty room without the thousands of fans.

“That sounds great,” JJ, his best friend and manager, says. He appears at Otabek’s side with a clipboard and his phone in hand. He stops his scribbling as he notices the drawings on Otabek’s arms. “Again?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’ll have to wear -”

“Long sleeves, yeah, I know,” Otabek says. He presses play on a track and walks offstage, down to the middle of the empty dancefloor, so he can hear what it sounds like from the audience’s perspective. His sound engineer Leo is at the venue’s soundboard at the back of the room, making slight tweaks here and there to adjust the sound.

“It sound alright, boss?” Leo asks.

Otabek closes his eyes and lets the music wash over him. It sounds good, it does, but it’s not quite perfect, and Otabek doesn’t like settling for anything less.

“Needs more bass,” Otabek says after a moment.

Leo nods. “Yeah, if we can’t feel it in your bones, it’s not loud enough, right?”

Otabek grins. “Something like that.”

Leo makes the adjustments and it sounds better straight away, the bass reverberating around the room and pulsing through the floor. Otabek awards him a rare smile and goes back to join JJ onstage.

“You ever thought about writing and asking them to stop?” JJ asks, staring at the mountains on Otabek’s skin once more.

“I like the drawings, though.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s a nightmare trying to keep the fact that your soulmate is so obviously an artist away from the press, and not just a doodler like the rest of the world. We have a hard enough time keeping fans away from you as it is, and it’ll only make it harder if they start thinking they’re special because they got an A in art in high school.”

“So obviously an artist?” Otabek asks.

“Yeah, Beks, have you seen the shit that you end up with on your body? There’s not many that can draw that well. And sometimes you get paint splatters. They’ve got to be an artist.”

“Huh.” It’s not something Otabek has given a whole lot of thought to. Obliviously he knew his soulmate was talented, but he didn’t think they’d be an actual artist. Is it possible to love someone you’ve never met? Because Otabek certainly feels that way right now. He looks down at his arms, at the mountains that are starting to fade a bit now, and daydreams about some guy sitting by a lake somewhere, a canvas on an easel and paint-splattered all down their front. It’s the thought of this faceless stranger that intrigues Otabek more than normal all through the gig that night, as he wonders how to go about finding him.

* * *

Yuri’s phone pings with a message. Mila, again. These days, she won’t stop texting him about one thing or another. It’s probably about some lover or gossip.

He decides to be a good friend and indulge her nonetheless because she tends to do the same for him.

As he opens the article, though, Yuri quickly realises the headline isn’t promising anything fun. Gossip, yes. About a lover? Apparently. But not concerning Mila… Yuri tears his thoughts away and begins to read.

**_Otabek Altin’s Soulmate Found?_ **

****

Beneath it is a picture of the man in question that Yuri doesn’t need because hell, he knows what Otabek looks like. And most of his body is hidden away by that ridiculous, sexy leather jacket. It’s not like anyone can see the marks.

Of course, Yuri still has to read it.

_During the weekend, Otabek Altin was spotted with a clearly visible soulmark when he was out shopping._

Wait. What? There is nothing clearly visible. Yuri scrolls back up. Wow, there, on his hand, is a tiny star. A single, tiny fucking star. The way kids draw them all the time. The same stars Yuri doodled all over his arm. And Mila. And a dozen other people in their course because life is fucking boring and people doodle.

It means nothing.

_Now, sources report having found a young singer with a similar soul mark in place. The man in question is an underground rock artist fans spotted at a concert in Downtown Manhattan one day after._

The photograph that follows shows a singer, screaming into a microphone. On the hand he’s holding the microphone with is a drawing of a somewhat similar-looking star. But it’s off, quite a bit.

_Neither Otabek Altin himself, nor the New Yorker, confirmed anything so far, but the rumour mills are turning. We will keep you updated. What do you think? Do the soulmarks look identical enough? Leave us a comment!_

Yuri knows never to feed the stupid but in this case, he is the dumb one because he scrolls down and reads the comments anyway.

_Oh my gooooood. It’s definitely the sameeee_

No. It’s not.

_Otabek just be so happy loook at the sexy boy!!1!_

Fuck, no. This dude doesn’t even look like Otabek and he would get along. Why are people so fucking oblivious?

_I have a star, too, maybe I’m his soulmate!_

He groans. The internet is so fucking dumb. This isn’t real. Otabek’s soulmate hasn’t been found yet, Yuri is convinced. He stares at his own arm. Before he goes to bed, he draws a middle finger on it.

* * *

“Fucking vile,” JJ mutters, locking his phone with a sigh. “Sorry, Beks.”

They’re at the airfield, waiting to board Otabek’s private jet to go to the next city. The story about Otabek’s supposed soulmate has just broken, and he hasn’t been on Twitter all morning because he knows his mentions are going to be a complete mess.

“It’s fine,” Otabek says. There’s nothing they can do about it now. It’ll die down in a couple of days, there’ll be some other story about a celebrity maybe finding their soulmate, and the world will move on. It gets him wondering who his actual soulmate is, though. What if they’ve seen the article? What will they be thinking?

He checks Instagram for something to do and immediately regrets it. Even his normal inbox with the people he actually knows is full of them asking if the rumours are true. His thumb hovers over ‘message requests’ for a moment, and he bites his lip before switching to that tab. As a rule, he doesn’t check them himself all that often. It’s mostly his PR team’s job to shift through the dick pics and sponsorship deals and someone somewhere claiming that they’re his second cousin once removed and can they get tickets to his next concert?

He scrolls down the page a bit. They’re all along a similar vein: _I think I’m your…_ or _I saw the article and…_ or the ever so ominous _[image attached]_ which could be anything from a drawing of a star that looks only slightly like the one that’s now starting to fade from Otabek’s arm, to fanart, to someone’s nudes. He’s never been able to work out why strangers think it’s acceptable to send him their nudes, and it’s the main reason he never really checks his message requests himself. No one wants to wake up to a dick pic at nine am on a Tuesday.

They board the plane. Otabek turns his phone onto aeroplane mode before they’re even asked, glad of an excuse to get away from the internet. He takes his jacket off, and it’s then that he notices the middle finger that’s appeared on his forearm overnight. He smirks. Perhaps his soulmate has seen the article, then. And it seems they’re not all that pleased with it.

Otabek stares out of the window, wondering again who his soulmate is, and if they’ll ever get to meet each other.

* * *

It’s snowing.

When Yuri went to bed last night, the streets had been clear, and Yuri hadn’t paid much attention to the weather forecast on the evening news saying heavy snow was expected overnight. It’s Russia, it snows, he’s used to it.

He wakes up with Potya curled up underneath the blankets with him. Her fur tickles his nose. She’s like a little hot water bottle, and it makes him not want to get up.

Even more so when he can see his breath inside his apartment. The building is old, and the insulation is dreadful, to the extent that when it’s really cold he gets ice on the inside of the windows. He lies there for a few minutes staring at the ceiling before he notices the time and realises he’s got to get up now if he wants to stand a chance of getting to university on time.

He checks his phone as he makes breakfast. Some guy has spammed both his personal and art Instagram accounts with likes, which isn’t wholly unusual, but it’s more who it is that makes Yuri pause as he reaches for the milk. Yuri looks at his profile, and leo_de_la_iglesia has a fair few thousand followers. His account is a whistle-stop tour of all the tourist spots in the cities Otabek has played in the last few months; Central Park, the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower. Otabek is even in some of the photos, mostly the ones at concerts where all the photos seem to be taken from the sound booth. Leo must be on Otabek’s team, Yuri supposes. Do lighting or sound or something.

But why is he liking Yuri’s photos? It’s got to be a coincidence, right? He can’t - they can’t think Yuri is Otabek’s soulmate? Right?

Yuri abandons his breakfast and grabs a blue marker from his desk, drawing a snowflake on his arm. He snaps a photo and puts it on his Instagram stories. It’s not something he does, generally, but it’s getting to a point that he does want to know either way. He’s doesn’t even know if Leo will check his stories or not, but messaging him seems weird, and the story will disappear in twenty-four hours anyway.

* * *

“Beks, Beks, show me your arm!”

Leo runs into Otabek’s dressing room, brandishing his phone. He’s grinning, and Otabek frowns at his friend.

“What?” he asks.

“Just do it, will you?”

Otabek pushes his sleeves up, revealing the blue snowflake that first appeared about an hour ago. It’s not incredibly detailed, not like the mountains he got a few weeks ago, but Otabek thinks there’s still a certain beauty in it.

“Happy now?”

“Yes,” Leo says, his grin stretching even wider. He places his phone down on the dressing table, pressing down on the screen to keep an Instagram story in place. “I think I’ve found him, Beks. I think I’ve found your soulmate.”

“What?” Otabek grabs the phone, staring at the snowflake on screen, then looking down at the one on his arm. It’s - they’re identical. Is this… could this guy possibly be? “Fucking hell.”

Otabek goes onto the guy’s profile. Yuri Plisetsky, 19, St Petersburg, Russia. An art student. His art page is full of drawings, and some of them are familiar in the way that Otabek can remember having variations of them appearing on his skin at the same kind of time that the pictures date from. His personal is a mixture of selfies, pictures taken with a girl with red hair, his cat, and the buildings of St Petersburg. He’s attractive, long blond hair and piercing green eyes that Otabek longs to see in real life.

“Fucking hell,” Otabek repeats as he carries on scrolling. “How did you - how did you find him?”

“I was thinking about what JJ always says about your soulmate being an artist, so I started trawling through all the art hashtags on Instagram, looking for anything familiar. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but then I found his accounts, spammed them with likes so he’d notice. Then he posted that story and I came running to ask if you also had a snowflake on your arm.”

Otabek gives Leo his phone back, and gets his own out, quickly searching for Yuri’s handles. He considers following them, but he’s not sure how that will come off, if it’ll cause panicking, so he settles for messaging instead. He chooses Yuri’s art account over his personal one because it’s Yuri’s art more than anything that’s brought them together.

“You’re messaging him? What are you saying?”

* * *

**(plisetsky_art) otabekaltin wants to send you a message.**

Yuri stares at the notification on his phone. That’s - no. Fuck.

“Mila,” he says, urgently tugging at his friend’s arm, “Mila, he’s messaged me.”

“Who?”

“Otabek fucking Altin, who else?”

“Oh my god.” Mila puts her paintbrush down and gives Yuri her full attention. “What’s he said?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it!”

Yuri swipes at the notification. He’s not sure he’s ready to read whatever is in that message. Or, perhaps more accurately, he’s not ready for Mila to say _I told you so._

**otabekaltin: Hey, so this might be a bit out of the blue, but I think you’re my soulmate?**

“Oh my god!” Mila squeals next to him. “Oh my god oh my god, I told you so!”

“Shh, Mila!”

**plisetsky_art: Wtf**

**plisetsky_art: Prove it**

There’s no reply for a moment, and then a video appears. Yuri presses play, and it shows Otabek writing song lyrics next to the snowflake Yuri drew earlier. Yuri frantically pushes on his sleeve, just in time for the words _oh tonight we’re making gold / watch how we glow / you burn on my skin_ appear on his arm.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. Otabek Altin is his fucking soulmate. His soulmate. What the fuck is his life?

“Well, don’t just leave him hanging, reply!”

Yuri snaps a photo of the words on his arm and sends it back, before grabbing another blue pen and drawing around the lyrics with more snowflakes. He takes a video of him drawing and sends that, his heart racing.

Otabek replies almost immediately with a video of the snowflakes appearing on his arm. Yuri watches the video loop again and again as he tries to think up of a reply to send.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” he asks.

Mila nods. “It certainly seems that way.”

**otabekaltin: So what now?**

What now indeed? Yuri doesn’t know. They’re so far apart - he’s pretty sure Otabek is touring the US right now - and Otabek is so famous. Yuri’s not sure he’s ready for that level of public scrutiny.

**plisetsky_art: Idk**

**plisetsky_art: Aren’t you touring right now?**

**otabekatlin: Yeah, I’m on day one of three in LA right now. You’re in St Petersburg, right?**

**plisetsky_art: Yeah**

**otabekaltin: Are you busy at the moment? I can get you on a plane to LA like, now, if you want to come over?**

Yuri puts his phone down and sighs. He can’t just drop everything here. He’s got classes, work to do, Potya to look after. He was meant to be going to Moscow to visit his Grandpa this weekend. He can’t just drop everything and run off to LA because he knows who his soulmate is now.

Mila peers over his shoulder at the message. “You’ve got to go,” she says. “You’ll catch up on the work, I can look after Potya, your Grandpa will understand.”

“Yakov won’t,” Yuri mutters, casting a glance over at their miserable tutor whose only love in life seems to be hating what his students do if they don’t conform to his exact standards.

“Forget about him,” Mila says. “This is your soulmate we’re talking about here, you can’t just pass up the opportunity because you’ve got a drawing of a plant to do.”

Yuri picks up his phone again. He doesn’t have any classes on Friday, so he could make it work if he wanted to. It’s still a big risk, though, and it’ll be the longest journey he’ll ever have made on his own. But he knows it’ll be worth it.

“Fuck it,” he says.

**plisetsky_art: Make it Thursday evening/Friday and I’ll be there**

**otabekaltin: Great! I’ll contact you about flight details when I’m offstage. Looking forward to meeting you properly <3**

**plisetsky_art: Same <3**

“Oh my god,” Yuri says. “How is this real life?”

“I don’t know, but I think you’ve got dealt a pretty good hand,” Mila says with a smile. “Now, what are you going to pack?”

* * *

Two days later, Yuri touches down in LA. He’s got no idea what time it is, his first flight took off at half-past five on Thursday in St Petersburg, then he had a layover in Moscow, and another one in Dubai. He got to travel first class on the flight, which was an entirely new experience, and something else to add to the long list of how none of this feels real yet. Now he’s in LA, weaving his way through arrivals looking for whoever’s been sent to pick him up. The airport is loud and busy and Yuri is feeling slightly overwhelmed by it all.

He spots someone standing with a sign that says Yuri Plisetsky and makes his way over. The guy looks like Otabek, a bit, but not quite.

“Yuri Plisetsky?” the guy says, and he sounds sort of American, but maybe it’s Canadian? Yuri’s not sure.

“Yeah,” he replies.

“Jean-Jacques Leroy, but call me JJ,” JJ says. “I’m Otabek’s manager. How was your flight?”

“Fine.” Yuri yawns. He doesn’t bother to correct that it was flights, plural. “What time is it?”

“It’s two pm local time. Would you like to stop somewhere for lunch, or would you prefer to go straight to the hotel?”

“The hotel,” Yuri says with another yawn. “I ate on the plane.”

“Of course. This way, please.”

* * *

If Yuri was impressed by flying first class, it’s got nothing on the hotel. He knows he should stay awake, keep going to beat the jetlag or whatever it is you’re supposed to do, but as soon as he lies down on the bed, he’s half asleep already. He has enough time to message Mila to let her know he’s arrived safely, and then he takes a pen out of his rucksack and draws a love heart on his arm. He doesn’t know when he going to meet Otabek, but he’s asleep before he even has a chance to think about it.

* * *

He doesn’t get to meet Otabek until right before the show. He’s driven to the venue in the evening, taken down a maze of corridors backstage to a room where JJ knocks on the door.

“Yeah?” comes a voice from inside, and oh god, that’s Otabek. Yuri lets out a shaky breath and stares down at his boots. He hopes his outfit is alright, Mila took the ‘you’ll see him in concert’ bit of the conversation to heart and found him the most club-appropriate outfit from what they already had in their wardrobes. It’s a pair of black denim shorts, handpainted on the back pockets with snowflakes, a shimmery see-through blue top, a lot of silver necklaces, fishnet tights, and his trusty Docs.

“It’s JJ, Yuri’s here.”

The lock clicks and the door opens, and Otabek is standing there, actual Otabek Altin. He’s somehow even hotter in real life. He’s wearing short sleeves, and Yuri can see the love heart from earlier standing out against his tanned skin.

“Hey,” Otabek says, and there’s a smile on his face, and that’s something Yuri hasn’t seen a lot of on his social media. It’s beautiful.

He’s beautiful.

“I’ll leave you to it,” JJ says, and then Yuri is inside the room, the door swinging shut behind him. He doesn’t feel nervous, not really. Everyone always says meeting your soulmate feels like you’ve known them your whole life, and Yuri has in a way, even if it’s only been in the way of midnight scribbles on his skin.

“Hi,” Yuri says. He takes a seat on the sofa and helps himself to a bottle of water on the table. “So what now?”

“I - I didn’t think about how this would go, to be honest,” Otabek says. He sits down next to Yuri and looks at him. “You’re even more gorgeous in real life.”

Yuri blushes. “Thanks.”

“I’ve written a song for tonight,” Otabek says. “I hope you like it.”

“You wrote a song for me?”

“I did, yeah. Is that too forward? I can take it out of the setlist if you like.”

“I just flew all the way from St Petersburg to meet you, I think you writing a song is more than fine. I’m sure I’ll love it.”

* * *

Yuri does love it.

It comes about halfway through the set when people are having the time of their lives singing along to the words and jumping up and down to the music. Yuri is standing at the side of the stage, watching it all in awe. The lights are a show in themselves, changing in time to the beat of the music and filling the room with a rainbow of light.

“This next one’s a new one,” Otabek says when he picks up the microphone. “I hope that’s alright. I’ve met my soulmate, and he’s here tonight, so Yuri, this one’s for you.” He turns to Yuri as he says it, and Yuri smiles at him.

The crowd cheers and the song starts. It starts fairly relaxed but soon picks up the pace, and there’s one line that stands out to Yuri most of all: _when I’m with you I feel alive._

He remembers his Grandpa saying the best years of his life were when Yuri’s Grandma was still alive. How nothing compared to how things felt when they were together. And Yuri felt that as soon as Otabek opened the door to his dressing room, and he feels it now when thousands of people are jumping up and down to a song that’s written because of him, for him.

There’s a pen on a nearby table, and Yuri grabs it, writing _when I’m with you I feel alive_ on his arm, and the following line _I’ll never let you go._

He adds a love heart for good measure and goes back to watching the show, a smile on his face and his heart bursting with love. Across the stage, he sees the words start to appear on Otabek’s arm, who spots them and grins.

Yes, Yuri thinks, they’ll be alright. Things might seem a little bit overwhelming right now, but he knows, somewhere deep down, that Otabek is all he’s ever going to need, and he reckons Otabek feels the same way.

He takes a picture of his arm and posts it to Instagram. He tags Otabek, captions it _I’ll never let you go either_. He posts it and forgets about it as he turns back to the show.

Tomorrow morning, he’ll wake up to three-quarters of a million people following him and an email in his inbox offering him to get verified. He’ll wake up to thousands of comments and likes, articles about him and Otabek and speculations on how they found each other, people wondering how such a fairytale happened in today’s world. 

But that’s tomorrow. For now, Yuri is going to stand here and watch his soulmate DJ, as the crowd sings the first of many songs that will be dedicated to him over the years. He’s still not sure how this is his life, but he’s incredibly grateful that it is. Now he’s here, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

_I’ll never let you go._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can also find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/pllsetskyonice)


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